Just a little Percabeth fluff because, why not?

Trigger warning: mention of cutting.

She was there again, in hell, only this time Percy wasn't there. She looked around frantically, trying to to find him until she felt a sickly warm liquid seeping through her shoe. She looked over and there he was, an empousa standing triumphantly above him with his throat in her blood-stained mouth. The demon grinned at her and hobbled away, as if she knew that killing her now wouldn't be as painful as letting her live. Annabeth crouched down beside Percy's mostly dead body and clutched it to her own, mewling his name over and over again as she wept and he died.

And that's when she woke up.

Looking at her clock, Annabeth judged that she had gotten approximately two hours of sleep. This seemed adequate for her, because two hours of restless sleep was better than what she got most nights. She got up and went to the bathroom in the Athena cabin to wash her face, and then continued her work on the plans to remodel Olympus. She worked on a temple to Hecate until other campers started waking up. She then got ready for breakfast.

She got a large coffee, ignored the worried looks from Percy (though he looked just as sleepless as her, and he thought that she didn't notice the fresh bandages that peeked out from under his long-sleeved shirt every morning), and went on with her daily schedule to distract herself from her most recent nightmare and her obvious lack of sleep. Her schedule did involve Bunker 9 and the Forges daily, mostly because the noise helped keep her awake. But for the most part she led her campers to their activities and avoided the lava wall. She managed to make it through the day without too much trouble, and at the campfire she snuggled up to Percy, feeling the safest she had all day.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself. Did you have a nice day?"

"I suppose, but there could've been more of you in it." Annabeth blushed faintly and wondered what she had done to deserve her wonderful boyfriend. Her thoughts flitted to two wars and Tartarus as answers, but she tried to quickly brush that off.

"I wish we could share a cabin. This is the safest I've felt all day."

"We could ask Chiron, he proposed.

"He won't allow it without a good explanation, and I relive that place too much at night. I don't want to bring it out into the sunlight." Percy frowned slightly, but nodded.

"Maybe Nico-"

"Absolutely not." Annabeth shot down the idea immediately.

"But Will would be there, and he's not on the verge of insanity because of this, and-"

"He went through that alone Percy. If we're going through this much while we had each other, imagine what Nico went through."

"But-"

"I couldn't do that to him. Or Will, for that matter. Will doesn't need to know about Tartarus, and let's hope he never does know." Percy straightened.

"Fine. I'll talk to him then."

"Now? But- the dark." She whispered the last part, feeling like a child because she was, in fact, afraid of the dark.

"Tomorrow. We have to do this, Annabeth. You're not sleeping, and I-" his voice cracked a bit, "I need you. To stop me when I'm going too far." Annabeth started crying softly, and Percy picked her up and carried her out of the amphitheater and to the docks. This wasn't entirely unusual at this point and time for the camp, so very few people seemed to notice them leave.

"We can just sleep here tonight, until I can ask him if you can come to my cabin." Annabeth nodded in acceptance of the idea.

"What about the cleaning harpies?"

"Under the docks, or in a canoe out on the lake. I didn't mean right here." Annabeth nodded to him.

"As long as you're there. Th- the nightmares. They're unbearable." And with this Annabeth told him of the dream she had last night as well as other dreams where he stayed behind and left her or died and she had to carry on alone. Percy's eyes softened and became sadder with every passing retelling, and finally he just kissed her to get her to be quiet.

"Hey, I know what you're talking about. I have dreams like that too, though you seem to be handling it much better than me." He rolled up his sleeve to show her his fresh scars and scabs and bandages. Annabeth could feel tears coming, just looking at the lost face of her boyfriend.

"When did you start?"

"When we got back to camp. It was the first time I had had dreams that intense, and-" his voice broke with emotion, "I just love you so much. I never want to lose you."

"Me too, Percy," she said with sadness in her voice. "Come on, let's sleep. I have a feeling that the nightmares will stay away tonight."

So yeah... This is one of those late-night I-can't-sleep Ooh-that's-a-good-idea fics.

Tell me what you think in the comments!

-Holly-